


for you, i'd steal the stars

by memitims



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-08 08:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3202565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memitims/pseuds/memitims
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it all starts with two boys stargazing on a rooftop, but the story's long and complicated and the world gets in their way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> [title credit](http://justkailea.tumblr.com/post/86088834995/for-you-id-steal-the-stars)

When Steve was younger, and the stars in the night sky were still visible from the streets of Brooklyn, he and Bucky used to sneak out to the roof of Steve’s apartment building on clear summer nights to stargaze. Bucky had suggested it, one day, after a particularly interesting astronomy lesson in their science class.

Steve wasn’t so sure if it was a good idea.

“We aren’t supposed to go on the roof of my building, the landlord said so. What if we get caught, Buck?”

“You worry too much, Steve,” Bucky said, shaking his head with amusement. “No one’s gonna care about a couple of kids fooling around on the roof. Plus, even if we do get caught, I can just charm our way out of it.”

Steve laughed. “Someday, you’re gonna come across a problem that even your impeccable charm can’t solve.”

Bucky scoffed. “Doubt it. C’mon, roof!” He gestured upwards with his hand. “Please?”

“Fine.” Bucky’s charm worked flawlessly on Steve, too, not that he would ever admit it.

Steve’s mom was working a night shift and wouldn’t be home til the next morning, so they were able to climb out onto the fire escape and scamper up the stairs to the roof; Steve led the way. His heart beat harder in his chest, half from danger and excitement, and half from looking behind him and catching a glimpse of Bucky’s blinding smile in the darkness. That smile could probably get Bucky any girl he wanted, could probably power the whole city of New York, but Steve had only ever seen Bucky use it on him.

They reached the top of the stairs and scrambled onto the roof. Bucky froze when he stood up on the dark red bricks and took a look around. Steve watched him, the way his eyes caught on the faraway lights of Manhattan across the river and traveled upwards to gaze at the massive expanse of stars above them. Steve was no astronomer, but he could pick out a few constellations – the Big Dipper and Orion’s Belt – and he pointed them out to Bucky.

“Wow,” Bucky breathed. “They look bigger from up here.”

Steve doubted whether that was actually true, his apartment building wasn’t  _that_  tall, but there was something clearer about seeing the stars from a higher point, rather than stuck on the streets below, something almost magical about the sky spread out before them, wide and open and for a small moment, all theirs. He didn’t say any of that out loud, half-afraid that Bucky would tease him for  _all that artistic-minded crap_ , as he liked to call it, but Steve knew that there wasn’t actually anything mean-spirited behind Bucky’s teasing, knew that it was out of some kind of fondness, knew that Bucky liked it when Steve shared what was on his mind, however weird it was.

“It’s like it’s all ours,” Steve settled on saying. “Steve and Bucky’s universe.”

“Bucky and Steve’s universe,” Bucky corrected, a cocky smile on his lips. “Should be alphabetical for christ's sake, Stevie.”

Steve poked him in the shoulder, playfully, but his throat dried up when he went to speak again. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, “long as it’s ours.”

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, his voice small. They didn’t talk much after that, just sat down together on the roof, their shoulders pressed tightly together as they watched the lights and the stars and even a few helicopters as they tracked across the night sky.

It was a fairly warm summer night, so Steve didn’t have to worry about his neverending shivers and the way the cold settled deep into his bones during the rest of the year. He knew Bucky hated it when Steve was cold, was always offering Steve his coat and his sweaters and his blankets whenever he saw even the slightest shiver, and Steve hated it when Bucky worried about him, so the summer was nice because he could get away from Bucky’s anxious glances. The fresh air was good for his lungs, too, he could feel them open and take deeper breaths and they didn’t crackle in his chest like they did when he was surrounded by car exhaust down on the street.

He told Bucky just as much, breaking the silence.

Bucky smiled. “Good. Told ya the roof would be a good idea.”

Steve had to agree. “Should make you a sign,” he quipped, “ _Bucky Barnes_ : always right.”

“I’d wear it, too,” Bucky said, raising an eyebrow. “Proudly. Let everyone know that Steve Rogers thinks I’m the smartest guy around this side of Brooklyn. I’d never hafta go to school again, the teachers would just give me A+’s, and I could spend all my time thinking up good ideas for us to try.”

“Lord, you’re a piece of work, Buck,” Steve said, laughing.

Bucky smirked. “That’s why you love me.” He nudged Steve with his elbow, tilting his head to the side so he could look Steve in the eyes. Steve blushed red and he quickly averted his gaze away from the bright, knowing look in Bucky’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Steve said, his voice breaking a little on the word. It’s probably the closest they'd ever come to talking about the crazy, volatile thing between them – the sparks at their fingertips when they touched, the way their eyes lingered on each other for a second too long, the rapid increase in Steve’s heartbeat whenever Bucky smiled at him. There was an unspoken rule not to talk about it, because talking about it made it real, would make them have to confront whatever emotions they'd been trying so desperately to avoid.

None of that matters when they stargazed, though, so they tried to make it up to the roof as often as possible. It was a distraction, a way to sit in silence in each other’s company and pretend like they weren't five kinds of in love with each other.

\---

Steve was having an asthma attack. He and Bucky were trying to clean up the apartment as an early birthday present for his mother, and Steve had gotten too close to a bunch of unsettled dust and it had gotten into his lungs. He couldn’t breathe and his lungs  _hurt_ , his mouth tasted like dust and blood.

“Steve?” Bucky said, and Steve could hear the fear in his voice.

He wheezed in response, pressing his hand to his chest in an effort to stop the pain, but it didn’t work.

“Shit.” Bucky’s eyebrows were knitted together with worry. The world started spinning, and then Bucky grabbed his hand and hauled him towards the window with the fire escape. He pulled Steve outside onto the stairs into the fresh air and hurried him up the stairs to the roof. When they reached the roof, Steve began gulping the air, trying to get as much into his lungs as he could. Bucky pulled him towards the ground into a sitting position and sat next to him, making sure Steve’s back stayed straight.

“Bucky,” Steve choked out, not sure exactly what he was trying to say, but even just saying Bucky’s name made him feel a little bit better. The fresh air was goodt, too, it always helped stop his asthma attacks and the clear air on the roof was even better.

“Shh,” Bucky said. “Just breathe.” He began to rub big circles across Steve’s back, his fingers warm through Steve’s thin shirt. His breath began to even out as he focused on the feel of Bucky’s hand, the other one coming up to stroke through Steve’s hair. It felt incredible, and Steve could  _breathe_  again. His mouth still tasted like blood, but his chest didn’t hurt anymore and his lungs didn’t rasp with each breath.

Bucky kept whispering nonsense to him, brushing his fingers carefully through Steve’s hair and rubbing his back. Steve took a few more deep breaths and sighed.

“Feelin’ better,” he muttered. “Thanks, ‘m sorry for scaring you.”

Bucky shook his head. “Don’t,” he said, “don’t apologize to me.”

They were quiet for a few moments. The only sounds were their breathing – Steve’s slightly heavier than Bucky’s – and the sounds of horns honking from the street below. Bucky slowly took his hands off Steve and it made Steve feel cold all over. Bucky used to touch him all the time – simple, casual touches, an arm slung over Steve’s shoulder, their feet hooked together under the kitchen table – but he didn’t much anymore, they were too old now probably and people might look at them weirdly and Bucky wanted to touch girls like that, not Steve.

“Stars look nice tonight,” Steve said, looking up at the sky. They really did, there hadn’t been fog in days and the stars looked brighter than ever.

Bucky nodded in agreement. He stared up at one part of the sky for a while, his eyes seemingly fixed on a single stare. After a minute or two, he laughed. “Look,” he said, pointing up at one star in the sky. “That’s your star.”

“What?”

“That one.” Steve followed the path of Bucky’s finger with his eyes. “The one that keeps flashing in and out for a while, but shines really bright when it stops blinking. It’s like you.”

“Oh,” Steve breathed, letting Bucky’s words sink in, and his chest was hurting, but not because of his asthma. “Shucks. Guess that’s my star, then.”

Steve couldn’t help looking for his star, after that, every night when it was clear enough for the stars to be seen. He’d stare up at the tiny pinpricks of light in the sky until his eyes found the one Bucky had claimed as his own. Bucky caught him doing it, once or twice, but he didn’t tease Steve for it, he just smiled and told him that he should be an astronomer when he grew up.

“Do you want your own star too?” Steve asked one night.

Bucky nodded his head no and clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “No, that’s alright,” he said quietly. “I’ve already got my own.”

Steve wasn’t quite sure what Bucky meant by that, but he was too afraid to ask.

\---

They were  _incredibly_  drunk, sitting in Steve’s small kitchen and trading sips from a bottle of cheap whiskey that Bucky nicked from his parent’s liquor collection. It had been a long week for both of them, so Bucky had brought it over and promised Steve a distraction from real life.

“Steve,” Bucky said, taking another sip of whiskey and handing it over to Steve so he could finish it off, “I’m realllllly drunk.”

Steve giggled. “Me too.” He took the last sip from the bottle, tasting the ghost of Bucky’s lips on the glass. He tried not to think about that, though. It was harder when he was drunk; he was braver, and telling Bucky how much he wanted to actually know what Bucky’s lips tasted like didn't seem like that horrible an idea.

“Wanna go up to the roof?” he asked, pushing his stupid thoughts about Bucky out of his brain.

“Sure,” Bucky said, standing up a bit unsteadily and heading towards the fire escape. They climbed it slower than usual, holding each other as steady as they could until they reached the top. The stars were out and Steve was pretty sure they were more breathtaking than usual.

Bucky went to the middle of the roof and laid down, pillowing his hands behind his head against the cool brick. Steve followed him, and in some moment of dumb courage, decided to lie down perpendicular to Bucky, letting his head fall into Bucky’s lap. It felt good – Bucky’s stomach was warm and firm and he smelled clean, like toothpaste and soap and the whiskey on his breath. Steve turned his head and nosed at Bucky’s shirt.

 _God_ , he was drunk, but then Bucky untucked one of his hands from behind his head and tangled it in Steve’s hair, and Steve was pretty sure Bucky was just as drunk as him. Bucky’s hand felt amazing against his scalp, and Steve sighed gently against Bucky’s chest. He turned his head to watch Bucky’s face as he stared up at the stars, still stroking his hand through Steve’s hair. His eyes were glassy and bright in the darkness, his lips shiny. Steve was mesmerized.

“There’s your star,” Bucky said, pointing up at the one they had decided was Steve’s. He glanced up at it for a second, before turning back to look at Bucky, who was still staring up at the stars. “So beautiful,” he whispered.

Steve murmured his agreement, but he wasn’t looking at the stars.

“Steve.” Bucky looked down at him.

“What?”

“Get up here.” He gently tugged on Steve’s hair. Steve raised his head off Bucky’s stomach and crawled towards him, laying himself straight down next to Bucky, their feet brushing together lightly. They both rolled onto their sides, facing each other, staring at each other through the darkness – the stars forgotten.

A strand of thick, dark hair fell into Bucky’s face. The alcohol made Steve brave, he reached out and pushed it out of Bucky’s eyes.

“Steve,” Bucky said again, half-warning and half-want, his eyes laid bare with desire and anticipation, so Steve closed the short distance between their lips.

Kissing Bucky was maddening, it was crazy, his lips were bowed and soft and they moved under Steve’s mouth with a strange mix of expertise and fumbling. Steve felt himself sigh against Bucky’s lips, and he tasted like cheap whiskey and mint. Bucky brought his hands up to frame Steve’s face and kept them there, even after they pulled apart.

Neither of them dared to do anything more, they just lay there, breathing heavily in the silence. There was no one else in the world, only them, and it didn’t matter that they weren’t supposed to kiss, that Steve was sick most of the time, that the world was going to shit. For a few hours, it didn’t matter.

Bucky curved one of his hands around Steve, pressing it against Steve’s back. He began to trace shapes against Steve’s skin. To Steve, it felt like he was drawing constellations.

The alcohol made them sleepy, their eyes drooping heavily, so they fell asleep tangled together. Two boys on a rooftop, afraid of why their hearts beat for each other, shining brighter than the stars above them.


	2. the middle

Steve couldn’t find his star anymore, not after Bucky shipped off. He didn’t even feel like looking for it. He went up to the roof by himself, once, to get fresh air and some peace and quiet, but the night was hazy and he couldn’t see the stars. He sat down on the roof and hugged his knees to his chest pathetically.

 _Stop feeling so sorry for yourself_ , Bucky would’ve said. Steve could hear Bucky’s voice in his mind, telling him to screw his head back on right, that he’d be back stateside before they knew it, that Steve needed to buckle down and do something useful with his life - go to art school, find a nice girl, get a good job. Bucky was always the practical voice in his head, and it sure didn’t stop even after Bucky left.

But Steve didn’t want to do any of that, he wanted to enlist, he wanted to fight, he wanted to be out there in the trenches, watching Bucky’s back and catching his rare smiles through the blood and sweat and death.

\---

Steve enlisted, and he met Peggy Carter, and then Erskine used his serum, and there was so much going on that Steve nearly forgot about the stars altogether.

He didn’t forget about Bucky, though.

\---

“Not without you!” Bucky yelled across the fiery divide, and Steve knew he had to do it, he had to jump. He was never gonna be able to convince Bucky to leave without him, and he didn’t come all the way here, he didn’t risk Peggy and Howard’s lives so Bucky could burn up inside the HYDRA factory because he was too damn stubborn to leave without Steve.

So he jumped and by some miracle, made it across, stumbling into Bucky and wrapping an arm around his shoulders to pull them both out of the burning building. They ran for the forest as fast as they could, avoiding what was left of the HYDRA guards and their disintegrating guns, and finally collapsed among the trees.

“Stevie,” Bucky said once he finally caught his breath. “What the hell happened to you?” He pawed at the front of Steve’s uniform, tracing the new muscles in Steve’s chest, and  _god_ , Steve had missed him so much.

“Long story. I’ll tell you later.” Steve crowded closer to Bucky, watching his face light up in the darkness. “First, I really, really want to kiss you.” It was a bold move, Steve knew, but he was high off adrenaline and from seeing Bucky again and he didn’t really care, they were alone in the woods and Steve had his best friend back. “If that’s okay?”

Bucky laughed, and his eyes crinkled in the corners. Steve felt his stomach swoop. “Okay. I guess I can handle that. Since you just saved my life and all.”

Steve leaned over and pressed his mouth to Bucky’s. He tried to pour all the desperation, all the longing he had felt while Bucky was gone, tried to make him understand how much Steve had missed him. His new body felt weird and different against Bucky’s, but the way Steve felt when their lips met was the same, it still felt like his whole universe had been narrowed down to this one point.

When they pulled apart, Steve looked upwards. The stars shone through the canopy of dark trees above them and for a minute, Steve could forget that they were a million miles away from Brooklyn, that they were fighting for their lives, that his body was wrong and Bucky wasn’t safe, because he looked up at the stars with Bucky by his side, and it almost felt like home.

“We should probably go find the others,” Steve murmured softly, because as much as he wanted to stay here with Bucky forever, he knew he had to make sure everyone else was safe, that they got back to camp okay, that Peggy and Howard weren’t in too much trouble.

Bucky grinned at him. “Can’t believe you’re really here. Thought I was gonna be trapped in that awful place forever.”

Steve shook his head stubbornly. “Not on my watch.” He stole one more quick kiss before heading out towards the road, Bucky at his shoulder.

\---

Happiness, Steve learned, could only last for so long.

He couldn’t catch Bucky’s hand, couldn’t save him this time, and Steve could heal gunshot wounds but it still felt like there was a bullet in his chest.

“C’mon,” Peggy said, pulling Steve from his tent, where he was furiously working on plans to go after HYDRA. He wasn’t going to rest until the Red Skull was dead. It helped him forget about Bucky, throwing himself into work, gave him something to take his mind off of Bucky’s screams reverberating in his head. “You need to take a break.”

Steve sighed and followed her. Peggy led him to the top of a small, grassy hill. She sat down in the grass and Steve copied her, and their fingers accidently brushed in the darkness. It sent warmth through Steve’s body.

“Look up,” she said, so Steve did. The stars twinkled above them, almost like they were taunting him. Steve didn’t dare look for his star. He was pretty sure his heart wouldn’t be able to manage it.

He felt tears at the corners of his eyes. “Peggy,” he said, his voice breaking on her name. “This was – Bucky, I mean, his favorite–”

“I know.” Peggy interrupted him, her voice soft. “He told me. Made me promise that if anything ever happened to him, I’d take you out stargazing because he knew how much you loved it, and he didn’t want you to stop he because he wasn’t here anymore.”

Steve let out an embarrassing little sob. “I can’t believe he’s gone, Peggy. I should’ve, I should’ve–”

“Hey,” she said sternly. “You did the best you could. You always do.”

Somehow, Steve found the strength to smile. He looked up at the sky again.

“Peggy?” he asked. “Would you like to learn the constellations?”

As it turned out, she did.


End file.
